We begin our series of highlights with Anabella Arcay—a tenacious entrepreneur who brought her award-winning Arcay Chocolates along with her when her family decided to migrate to the US.
A Venezuelan-Italian, Anabella was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to two Venezuelan parents with ancestry from France and Spain. She got the Italian nationality from her husband. A mother, wife and chocolatier, Anabella still caters to social events in Venezuela, where she has an important presence in her niche market.
In the US, Anabella had to start anew: “I will start a third time if I have to,” she said. Anabella moved to North Bethesda, Maryland, in September 2017. With a steady pace and great determination, she launched her chocolate and pastry business in the US, which sells either online or at La Cosecha DC.
She has won 42 International Chocolate Awards medals (6 gold), in London and New York, for her chocolates since 2011.
“If you fall down, well, get up! There’s no other way,” is Anabella’s response to her setbacks. Her biggest challenge is access to financial resources. She also had to adapt her product to local tastebuds and make them more universal, able to reach a very diverse community with a range of budgets. To achieve this, entrepreneurs must develop the five business senses: experience the market, observe it, feel it with your eyes, nose and ears.
The Maryland Women Business Center (MWBC) of the Rockville Economic Development Center has helped her with their professional and effective tasks. Anabella is proud to have founded the MWBC Program to Shop Local in Rockville. She highly recommends this resource, especially over other lenders who don’t follow through.
Here’s her advice to other Latinos looking to start projects in the US:
- Befriend perseverance and stay away from “in the meantime” or “not sticking to what you know,” which wastes your time and money. You need to be completely focused on your expertise.
- Connections are also important: not just having them, but creating them—really creating them—with professionalism.
- Innovate or else it will be hard for you to achieve the cusp.
- Finally, and most sincerely: Don’t faint. The roller coaster travels up and down. It doesn’t matter if you fall, the important thing is that you get up and keep going. Believe in what you do.